Your website is an important part of your business. Not only for your online but also for many offline business. Your online presence means that you can tap into the huge and growing market of the Internet. Many people think that having your own website and setting it up is complicated and expensive but it is not necessarily so. Here are some tips to have you up and running with ease.

A. Planning your website

Analyzing your desired visitors

How to attract them and warm them to the sale

Writing good content

Your sales letter

Your domain name

Optimizing content

Before you build a website you will need to put some thought and planning into it. Your first step will be to decide who are your most wanted visitors. Analyze them carefully, who are they? What interests them? Where do they go? Make a thumbnail sketch and write it down for reference.

Then list all the ways you will attract them and make them
stay at your site. What info content are they looking for? What sort of newsletter will interest them? Most important of all find out their needs and wants, so that you can build your product/service to fulfill these needs. List all these
and keep record of them.

Make a list of all the info articles that will interest them
and warm potential buyers for the sale. Put a couple on your website and keep the rest for future newsletter material.

Your sales letter: This is the heart of your business and should be done right. If you are an experienced copywriter then go ahead and write a warm persuasive personal sales letter. If you do not have experience then it is worth hiring a professional to write one for you. You can hire professional writers at www.elance.com for a reasonable price. You should place your sales letter on your home page and have your info articles link into it.

Your domain name: Should have at least 1-2 keywords or even be made up of your key phrase for your business. This will help with Search engine placement and will help to brand your business in your visitors minds.

Ideally your content should be optimized so that you can be placed well with the search engines.

B. Choosing an HTML editor.

Which one is right for you?

How to get a free one with hosting

Do it yourself VS having a website designed

There are 2 major HTML editors that are used commonly, Front Page and Dreamweaver. They can run you about $300-$400 but if you want to work on your site yourself will be worth it. Front page is a basic HTML editor but if your site requires PHP scripting is a little hard to work with. Dreamweaver does allow PHP scripts and is also easy to use. Do a comparison check and see which one will work for you.

If you have Yahoo hosting they provide a free HTML editor,
which is quite easy to use.

If you have the funds you may want to have your site
designed, especially if you have a service, where credibility is very important. Making your own website can be quite time consuming and although rewarding is not for everyone.

C. Designing your website

Your content-Preselling points

Free give a ways

Layout/Presentation

Use of graphics

Forms instead of email

Basic web promotion

Newsletter

When you write your web content you can use a couple of your best articles about your subject. Visitors will enjoy this and see you as an expert in your field. This boosts your credibility, wins trust and warms your potential buyer for the sale.Product reviews are also good selling points. Landing pages for direct advertising is always good; these can and should be optimized for search engine traffic.

Free info can be offered in the form of reports and
e-courses. These can be given as a bonus for subscribing to your newsletter.

Your layout is important. Navigation should be simple and
easy for your visitors, usually on the left hand side. Keep your layout professional and businesslike with normal font (Times Roman, Ariel or Veranda in normal size font). Black on white background is good for a business site. Try to use just 2 colors at the most to keep it looking businesslike. A simple template looks good for a business website. Try to find one that matches your topic.

Use graphics sparingly. Business websites should always look sober and professional. Small graphics are good to emphasize a point and book covers help to sell e-books and software.

Use forms instead of email addresses on your website for the contact us and about us section. This will cut down Spammers harvesting your email address.

Basic web promotion includes search engine submission,
Pay-per-clicks, Google ad campaigns, and linking to related sites. Article distribution is also a powerful way to get targeted traffic to your site.

A free newsletter is a must for capturing visitors email
addresses and building your business list.

Building your website can be a fun and rewarding task.
However it does take time and good planning. With these few points you will be able to build a profit pulling website, that will continue to make you money for years to come.

Author: Constantin Chersin
I was born in September 20, 1955 in Romania, and I am a Romanian citizen. Married, 2 beautiful daughters 18 and 20 years.
I graduated Faculty of Automatics in 1983 becoming a System Engineer, with a full degree. I worked in Ultra Sonic and High Frequency Power Supply Converter research institute in Bucharest, Romania until 1990.
After the fall of Ceausescu's regime, I have worked in sales since 1994. I now run my own company FOX I.E. in Romania. Starting in 1997 my company has dedicated its whole efforts to internet software activity.